Amazon is the most prominent company to use the high court’s June ruling that a Christian web designer was free to refuse to design sites for gay weddings.

Amazon.com’s Whole Foods Market doesn’t want to be forced to let workers wear “Black Lives Matter” masks and is pointing to the recent US Supreme Court ruling permitting a business owner to refuse services to same-sex couples to get federal regulators to back off.

National Labor Relations Board prosecutors have accused the grocer of stifling worker rights by banning staff from wearing BLM masks or pins on the job. The company countered in a filing that its own rights are being violated if it’s forced to allow BLM slogans to be worn with Whole Foods uniforms.

Amazon is the most prominent company to use the high court’s June ruling that a Christian web designer was free to refuse to design sites for gay weddings, saying the case “provides a clear roadmap” to throw out the NLRB’s complaint.

The dispute is one of several in which labor board officials are considering what counts as legally-protected, work-related communication and activism on the job.

  • Blake [he/him]@feddit.uk
    44·
    1 year ago

    False equivalence. Free speech and the first amendment are not the same thing.

    Amazon spends millions on lobbying politicians, but prevents their employees from wearing a badge which expresses support for an extremely marginalised group.

    • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.comEnglish
      24·
      1 year ago

      Free speech is literally a reference to the first amendment. There is no “right” to free speech outside of the first amendment.

      • Blake [he/him]@feddit.uk
        32·
        1 year ago

        Wow, that Oracle really was hot shit then, she must have seen the future and shared the 1st amendment with the people of Athens in the 6th century BC.

        • TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee
          2·
          1 year ago

          🤣Blake be like "Who is the freest speecher of all?"And Blake’s Oracle be like, “Whole Foods is the freest peach of all.”

          Just so you know… it’s not really that big of a leap to bring up the US first amendment when talking about a US company reacting to a US law with US action. Maybe you don’t need to jump to ancient Athens?

          • Blake [he/him]@feddit.uk
            11·
            1 year ago

            I know it’s not a big leap, honestly it’s perfectly reasonable to assume. If the guy had just said “oh yeah, I had assumed he was talking about the first amendment because this is a US legal case” I’d have been like “yeah, fair enough” but he kept being a pedantic ass about it and trying to make out that I was somehow fucking stupid for thinking that the guy was talking about the broad concept of freedom of expression rather than the 1st amendment, lol

        • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.comEnglish
          11·
          1 year ago

          Ah yes… Athens…

          https://www.britannica.com/biography/Socrates/The-Athenian-ideal-of-free-speech

          Socrates was prosecuted because of his religious ideas and political associations indicates how easily an ideal held dear by his fellow Athenians—the ideal of open and frank speech among citizens—could be set aside when they felt insecure.

          https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2006/2006.07.49/

          Through an examination of the American debate over the Bill of Rights and the political thought of John Locke, Saxonhouse articulates a modern conception of free speech that focuses on free speech as a necessary tool to check the actions of an always potentially tyrannical government.

          So… you wanna try that again? Notice that this is gasp in relation to the government. Not private property. So yes… in the context of this thread… which is US lawsuit against a US company… This would be the first amendment.

          Edit: Added missing information I meant to copy in… My bad.

          • Blake [he/him]@feddit.uk
            32·
            1 year ago

            If free speech existed anywhere before the 1st amendment then you can’t say that any reference to free speech is a reference to the first amendment. It may surprise you to hear that free speech is a concept which often goes beyond the first amendment, even in the US. When Elon Musk talks about “free speech” on Twitter, is he very confused about the first amendment? Or could he be talking about the concept of free expression?